Our Story

Ayla Dolan

A curious girl with an insatiable wanderlust.

Description:

A girl of grey locks and grey eyes. She’s well tanned from seasoned hikes and has an athletic build, if a little frail. Her hands are criss crossed with scars from her travels. Not often seen without a backpack, packed like a survival bag for WW3, if WW3 needed candles and incense as well as food and tools. Never handled a gun, but has nothing against them.

Stats are as follows:

High Concept: Child of the Nevernever
Trouble: Skittish as Mouse
Other Aspects:
1. Outdoors are a girl’s best friend
2. Don’t take the piss
3. Geographer of relentless change
4. Mentor on the Plains
5. “Normal” Student

Stunts and Powers:
Item of Power (-1)
– Map of the Nevernever: Notes where it touches the moral realm, dangerous places, mostly self-updating outside of areas deep in controlled territories like Winter or Summer lands and others like them.

Marked by Power (-1)
– Most weaker things in the world leave her along. Middle level creatures are wary, but may attack. Heavy hitters attack ruthlessly. She is unaware of her “mark” or that it even exists.

Swift Transition (-2)
– Step into or out of Nevernever at will. Works only for her.

No Mortal Home (+1)
– Falls into Nevernever when either super stressed mentally or unconscious. There is no negotiating this.

Thaumaturgy (-3)
– Specialization: Wards

Bio:

“I’m trailer trash. That’s my family. Mom spent too much time reading dimeback porno romance and not enough time even covering the essentials. Living off of food stamps and unemployment, we scraped by with just enough food, though we still had 200 channels for our tv. I couldn’t buy a notebook, but we had a VHS collection like nobody’s business. That was mom. I spent most of my time outside to get away from her little world.
“School was about as good as everyone else’s. There were the kids who had it all, the kids who knew it all and the kids who wanted it all; and then there was me. I went to school in order to count down the minutes till I was out. I had friends, but no one that I wanted to spend extra time with outside of class.
“About fifth grade, I started to notice that some things about me weren’t normal. This wasn’t the same ‘not normal’ that other girls go through. I was chased into a stall one day by Alexis Kane and when I next looked about me I was definitely not in a stall. I was somewhere much more awesome. And when I willed myself home, I just took a step forward and there I was. I would go back and forth daily, and still do. I leave home as much as possible, and only come back when my real life gets in the way.
“I got lucky that day and the days that followed. I know now how much bad there is in that place, in the other-side. Somehow I stayed safe for the first few months. I didn’t run into anything that didn’t run away from me. It’s an instinct that serves you well over-there. Run. Run as fast as you can, whenever you can.
“I got some help with that from a man I met on the other-side. He was smart and kind, something I’d never seen over-there. He taught me how to stay safe. How to build a home. How to protect it and how to run away more effectively if something really nasty came knocking. He even taught me how to make a map of that place, even though it shifts and changes every day.
“After ten years of this, I’m pretty good at it. My maps are accurate. My house is pretty safe. And I’ve got journals and sketches of the kinds of things I’ve seen, the kinds of things that other people only get to read about. In the real world, in this-world, it’s just so dull. I managed to test my way into a good school up north. The town is small and dull, but that’s alright because I never spend any time there. I got a dorm room that spatially works well, and after my touches spiritually works well to get me damn near my house by walking in through the back wall. I land in the middle of my warded minefield and can go straight to my home unmolested. It’s a stellar arrangement.
“On campus there’s a creepy ass lawnskeeper who looks like shit constantly. Ever since I talked to him on a tour day, he stares at me while I walk around. I’m used to being a freak in the middle of a crowd, but this guy is just unnerving. I once saw him pull a scythe out of his pack and run into a building. That’s just not right.
“Also, there’s a teacher who give me the creeps too. She’s just too… I don’t know how to put it, but it’s just not right. I tried to go into her office once late at night to change a grade, and there was a goddamn panther sleeping on the floor. Needless to say, I stepped back as fast as I could. I have tried to skip her class as much as I can, but it’s attendance graded, which blows.
“Who knows, I might be crazy. It all could be in my head, but I don’t think it is. I think it’s real. It’s real, and amazing, and I couldn’t be happier while I’m there; even if something is always trying to eat me.”